The Rise and Fall of Bill Miller

No stock star had sparkled more brightly than Legg Mason's Bill Miller's-or fell to earth with such a thud, WSJ's Jason Zweig reports on Markets Hub. Photo: Reuters.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... the mutual fund manager Bill Miller is stepping down ... after a tumultuous Korea where he was the first the hero in ends up being a gallon ... it got Jason Zweig here to talk about ... Bill Miller one of the most themed well-known fund managers out there that has twenty twenty five years ... so what you think a lot to them as you what this band of Bill Miller's career ... with the really a hero or was ego ... well I don't think he was the Heebner Daynard I think what's really interesting about Bill Miller is ... people got distracted by his famous street rate in the one thing everyone knows about this man ... is the first fifteen years in or out of the outperform the SB five hundred ... somebody is ... something that no one ever dynamic calendar year basis before or since ... and never do again for all we know ... I'm ... but ... that's it's easy to get distracted by that streak ... from ... what else was going on for so long after the StreetEasy performance was there they went off ... it went off a cliff refined lost roughly fifty five percent in two thousand he ... wishes ... at the absolute bottom ... of ... a major new told us that he lets the viewer is that he was fifty five cents but yours to the question though it seemed for so long like Blake Miller from a secret sauce and and and what happened and he denied he didn't change his investment thesis will now no one knows that ... was the portfolio ... concentrated ... great because the question is is it secret sauce ... was just the bauble beneficiary and ... well and what's what's the point Taranaki's is the part I mean to me why most fascinating ... components years if you go back to when Miller ... took sole control of the find at the end of nineteen ninety ... the measure him from then until today ... simple quiz to the beat the market or not he doubts ... he actually on Lunch not by much ... not much ... although risky write a gain but let's bear in mind you this fund had a very high expensed region is also to beat the market by anything ... over twenty plus year period when you have a huge expense ratio is is is a major achievement nominee and people ... secondly ... what took Miller down ... is exactly what put him on top ... it was beamed on high conviction investors and ... when the stocks he loved went down in price Kenya run screaming he bought more ... than his entire career did work ... it adding huge amounts of value ... what ... we need to be in financial stocks that went two zero ... lead going into new trial it also was not just watching it on the INFA so high earlier in the Iris own coffers in spring two thousand ate I was there for that now than ever to get a kiss he got up ... and said basically ... I Freddie Mac ... that weekend five once you were to zero and then he was in Citigroup which is not destiny that says is that he was a swimming in waters he didn't know were understand what it is just enough ... it looked like so many other people got will that the tech bubble will do great things here performance I think ... you know he had developed if ... a philosophical framework that can serve him and his investors really well ... which is if you ... come to a basic fundamental understanding ... of how a company generates cash ... and from that you can calculate intrinsic value then you buy the stock was never the stock price is below what you if your analysis tells you value ... it worked in technology ... brilliant ... it worked in industrials really well ... it ... normally works in financials ... but not ... in the global thermonuclear meltdown as it turned out it was different that he really was different of business on some implication altho brewer impatient correspond like Nison ... well I mean that debate is implication is that you know hundreds of millions of dollars in management fees are are gonna win else